Waterbury Cinema

117 Sharon Road,

Waterbury,
CT06705

There is some wrong information about General Cinema. They were not a division of Pepsi. They owned General Cinema Bottlers which was the largest bottler of Pepsi which was their 40 % of Pepsi. In 1988 they sold GC Bottlers to Pepsi for $ 1.3 Billion.

General Cinema did not file for bancruptcy in the ‘80. It was in 2000. They also were not bought by Hoyts. They were bought by AMC in 2002. They did have a joint ops with Hoyts in South America that was called Hoyts General Cinema but that was sold.

GCC ran a quad on this site in 1983 know as the Naugatuck 1-4. It is a good chance this cinema started off as a twin or triple with one of the auditoriums later split to expand the number screens to four.

Cinema I, II, III opened in 1969 at this site of the original Pine Drive In. General Cinema Corp. of Mass. (a division of Pepsi) operated the theatres. Cinemas I and II had 320 seats each. Cinema 3 had 900 with a huge screen. A long time Loew’s Poli projectionist, Ralph DiPietro, ran the booth. It was a busy place. This theatre effectively competed with and closed the two downtown palaces. In 1978 they split Cinema III into two screens..bowling alley theatres with small screens. General Cinema filed bancruptcy in the ‘80’s and was purchased by Hoyt’s of Australia who opted to lease a building (Owned by theatre magnates The LaFlammes) behind the decaying mall.
Ed Guinea

I was in Waterbury on Monday and decided to visit every listed Waterbury movie theater, living or deceased. Just like I remembered it. For a 10-screen theater it still looks pretty quaint. When you walk in, there are wax or plaster statues of Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi as a Blues Brother and Charlie Chaplin. The ticket booth is in the middle with the concession behind it. I asked the worker how many seats there were and he said 1,075.

The mall had a three screen cinema (maybe four at a later time). The ten screen cinema behind the mall still exists as the Holiday Cinemas 10 which are, in my opinion, the best kept cinemas in Connecticut.